Colorado State's New Mexico Bowl payout not all it's cracked up to be

Dec. 15, 2013

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It’s there, right next to the words “New Mexico Bowl” on nearly every list of postseason college football games.

A payout of $912,500.

Big money to be paid to the participating teams, in this case CSU and Washington State. Each earning an equal share of $456,250.

Or so it would seem.

Those payouts don’t mean what they once did, and the participating schools rarely see additional revenue from playing in a bowl game. They just get a big expense account, with their conference providing the reimbursement.

All bowl revenue now flows through the conference offices, with schools participating in postseason games given budgets for their travel and other expenses. Any remaining funds go into the pool of bowl revenues divvied up within each conference at the end of the fiscal year.

CSU’s budget for Saturday’s New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque is $562,950. That’s more than $70,000 higher than the payout the Mountain West Conference will receive from the bowl for the Rams’ participation in the first and one of the lowest-paying of the 35 postseason bowl games. Only the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, also affiliated with the MW, pays less at $325,000 per team.

Washington State’s budget, set by the Pacific-12 Conference, for the New Mexico Bowl is even higher — $675,000 with the opportunity to spend another $75,000 if the school reaches a certain threshold in ticket sales, Cougfan.com reported. Washington State athletic director Bill Moos told the website the school will spend at least $750,000 on its first bowl game since 2003.

“They’re provided with a number, and then the institutions have to figure out how to make that number work,” MW spokesman Javan Hedlund said.

The Rose Bowl will pay out $36 million this year, and the national title game will pay out $44.48 million. Bowl games paid out a combined $300.8 million to conferences last year, with the participating schools spending $90.3 million on their bowl trips, the Birmingham, Ala., News reported last week, citing a recent NCAA audit. Every conference came out ahead on bowl money for the 2012 season, with the MW netting about $2.27 million to distribute to its member schools, the audit found. The MW received $5.71 million and paid $3.44 million in expenses to its five teams that participated in postseason games.

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The MW will earn a little more than $4.13 million from the six bowl games it has teams in this year. Although some conferences keep a share of bowl money for the conference office, the MW splits its bowl revenue after expenses have been paid equally among its 12 football-playing members, Hedlund said.

CSU won’t have any trouble keeping its expenses under the $562,950 it’s allowed to spend on the New Mexico Bowl, said Steve Cottingham, the school’s chief financial officer. The school is responsible for selling $125,000 worth of tickets as part of that total, which equals 3,125 of the tickets priced at $40 apiece. CSU is seeking donations to offset the cost of the discounted $10 tickets it is offering students.

The MW bases its bowl budgets on a formula that takes into account not only the payout of each bowl game but also the travel distance to that bowl for the participating school. With no real benefit to spending less money, CSU will try to get its expenses as close to its budgeted total without going over as possible, Cottingham said.

CSU’s expenses for the 2008 New Mexico Bowl were $332,602, well below the $401,950 budget the school was given. For comparison’s sake, CSU spends about $200,000 to play a regular-season road game with a one-night stay, Cottingham said.

Some of the details still were being worked out, but the school had secured a charter flight to take the football team’s 117 players, 10 assistant coaches and dozens of support staff from the Fort Collins-Loveland airport to Albuquerque on Wednesday. Some administrators will make the trip on commercial flights Thursday and Friday, while the cheerleaders and marching band will make the trip by bus on Thursday, as they did for the 2008 game, Cottingham said.

Teams are placed at hotels arranged for through the bowl game.

CSU spent $173,762 on transportation costs for the 2008 New Mexico Bowl and $57,589 for meals and lodging.

Once those costs are known, the school can figure out on what to spend any remaining money in its budget. NCAA rules allow schools to spend up to $400 per athlete on bowl game “awards,” which could include any number of things ranging from game jerseys they’ll wear with the bowl logo sewn on one shoulder, to sweat suits, baseball caps or backpacks. Cottingham said players will receive hoodies and polo shirts with the bowl logo and other items that still were being finalized. Those gifts are above and beyond the $550 worth of merchandise the bowl game and its sponsors are allowed to provide each athlete.

A summary of expenses for the 2008 New Mexico Bowl showed CSU spent $52,050 on awards to its student-athletes. The school also listed $32,151 in administrative expenses, $11,000 for supplies, $4,850 for promotions and $1,200 on entertainment.

Gifts from the school also can go to student managers, student trainers, cheerleaders and band members.

“You want a great experience for your student-athletes, your other students who are important parts of the bigger team, for fans and benefactors and all that,” Cottingham said, “because you’re also representing the university on a national platform. And so you want TV to show your fans in the stands, and you want people to be excited and have a good time.

“It’s a capstone of the year, so you want people to celebrate it and use that to launch into the next year.”